CGTalk - Animation controls

Hezza

02-01-2006, 01:58 PM

Hi there,

I've been rigging my character and its all going fairly well so far. I've been following the leg and arm setup from The Art of Rigging Vol1. I've got my limbs duplicated twice, for the IK-FK switch,the IK is pretty much done.

I was just about to create control curves for the FK bones, which will be circle's around each joint, as they are in the Goblin example character in Chapter 1. But i wasn't sure how to attach them.

Now in the goblin file, i for the life of me can't figure out how its been done. From what i've gathered so far, the shape node from each control circle was added to each bones shape node. So now the circles don't exist, they are part of the bone shape, you can't find them in the hypergraph or the outliner, they aren't parented or constrained to the bones. All the bones with one of these circles attached also now has a SHAPES section in the channel box, with nurbscircle1 etc listed.

Does anyone know how to acheive this? I tried taking a bone and circle into the hypergraph and connecting up different outputs and inputs but with no luck. I thought this was quite a nice approach as you will be keying the FK bones directly, and not running though another contraint or parent.

Long waffling post but its the best way i can describe it.
Cheers for any help
Hez

Razr

02-01-2006, 02:29 PM

FK controls are simple to set up: parent-constrain the CONTROLLER to the BONE and lock the transformations on the CONTROLLER. That will keep the controller position locked to the bone's. Then ORIENT-CONSTRAIN the BONE to the CONTROLLER so the rotations of the controller drive the bone. Done.

Hezza

02-01-2006, 02:34 PM

Thats roughly what i was going to do, until i saw how it was done on this goblin character. I was wondering how i could get it that when i click the circle, it selects the FK bone directly, not running through any constraints. I reckon he's done it by making the circle the bones shape node, tho as bones don't normally have shape nodes, i was wondering how it was connected.

Thanks for you reply
Hez

Razr

02-01-2006, 02:42 PM

I need to look into the Art of Rigging section. Off the top of my head you could use the bone's Selection Handle and try to connect that to the controller. Not exactly sure how to achieve that though. Anyway I wouldn't recommend setting keys on the bones directly, it's usually good to keep animation on the rig layer and then bake the bones if you need to.

Hezza

02-01-2006, 02:44 PM

Aye, i'll go with constraints for now. It was more my curiousity and the neatness of it. I'd still like to find out how to do it if anyone knows.

Thanks
Hez

ashishdantu

02-01-2006, 03:25 PM

hi hezza,

i think i can help ?

say u have a bone01, its child bone02 and bone03. then u make a nurbsCircle01..

then u select nurbsCircle01 and on ur keyboard hit the down arrow - > which navigates to the nurbsCircle01 's shape node. and how shift select say bone02. so u have two things selected. first the circle's shape node and then the bone. < order is important.

then u type this in script editor : parent -r -s; << now what this will do is > parent the shape node to the bone's transform node (or the bone..simply) ..so now thats what u want right ? but now ur nurbsCircle01 is left in the scene, which is an empty transform node , meaning it is striped of its shape node.. so u can delete this transform node.

u select the nurbsCircle and it selects the bone ! actually i use it everyday. u can still modify ur nurbscurve's vertices to customize the look of it.. n u to c the shape nodes, in ur outliner, right click IN the outliner and check on the show shapes option and open the entire hirarchy to find ur nurbsCircleShape sitting underneath ur bone.

hope this helps...

Hezza

02-01-2006, 03:32 PM

I think you're right ashishdantu, i turned on show shape's in the outliner/hypergraph and i can now see and select the circles. I've not tried your method yet as i'm re-doing some of the IK on his arm but i can't see why it wouldn't work. I'll give it a try later.

Thanks again
Hez

Hezza

02-01-2006, 03:48 PM

Yep you were right. Just tried it now and its exact like this goblin character i was looking at.

Thanks again peeps
Hez

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